“We're either going to start looking after each other, CareMongering, or we're going to fall into fear,”an organizer from a CareMongering group in British Columbia told me during our conversation in August.
“We're either going to start looking after each other, CareMongering, or we're going to fall into fear,” an organizer from a CareMongering group in British Columbia told me during our conversation in August 2020. Founded in Toronto during the first wave of the pandemic, “CareMongering” is a community-based response to COVID-19. The purpose of the first group was to overcome fearmongering with care. The group aimed to ensure all community members had access to basic necessities, services, and resources throughout the pandemic. Since the first group was founded in early March 2020, CareMongering groups have spread across Canada, and internationally. There are now over 246 CareMongering Facebook groups worldwide. In Canada there are 191 CareMongering groups with over 200,000 members part of CareMongering. Groups are organized virtually using Facebook and coordinated at a local level.
During summer and fall 2020, Dr. Roberta Hawkins from the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics and me (a PhD student in Social Practice and Transformational Change) studied the CareMongering movement in Canada. As a part of this project, I spent time talking with 22 organizers of CareMongering groups in communities throughout the country. I interviewed organizers from Labrador to British Colombia, Manitoba to Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories to Ontario – and nearly all the provinces and territories in between.
When asked why they organized their respective CareMongering groups, many organizers spoke about widespread community fear and saw CareMongering as a way to help community members overcome their “pandemic fears.” An organizer in Prince Edward Island explained this, stating, “[The goal of our group was] let's not promote fear, let's not promote panic, let's […] take-action where we can to support each other through this.” As Canada enters the third year of the pandemic and faces the increasing pressures of the Omicron variant , we believe that our conversations with CareMongering organizers provide important ideas about the potential opportunities to counter fear associated with the virus (and societal responses to it) through care.
The fear of isolation: connect community through care(full) digital spaces
Over the past two years Canadians have been encouraged to stay home and self-isolate to protect themselves and their communities from COVID-19. A recent study from a non-profit research foundation, found that a rising number of Canadians have reported suffering from both loneliness and social isolation during the pandemic, with numbers jumping 10 percent since 2019.[i]
A key aspect of CareMongering has been connecting community members by creating locally-based, digital community spaces. Members have used CareMongering groups to share information, resources, and ask for or offer support, as well as organize volunteers, ask questions, and interact with other members. By fostering community connection, CareMongering has helped alleviate a sense of isolation amongst group members. An organizer of a CareMongering group in Southern Ontario told me how fear was addressed in her group, saying, “[It’s] "oh, you went through that? Okay, now I don't feel so alone" […] and knowing that I'm in my bubble here having fear and next door they’re in their bubble and they're having fear, but we can still care about each other through sharing that lived experience.” Echoing this sentiment, an organizer from British Columbia explained, “Well COVID is about isolation […] but seeing that you're not alone and seeing that in a public way [through CareMongering] has been helpful.”
Although CareMongering groups have played out differently across Canada, we found that CareMongering often went beyond just connecting people. Many group organizers worked to carefully create accessible spaces. For example, organizers engaged community members beyond the Facebook platform through other websites, telephone calls, and distributing CareMongering leaflets. Many also spoke about centring care in all group interactions. An organizer in Southern Ontario described this, saying, “[The pandemic] affects everybody differently, so we really wanted to make sure that CareMongering is a safe space for people to come.” She asked herself, “how can we overcome [the pandemic] as a community in the best way possible while recognizing that people are going to be scared – which is fine, absolutely, everyone is going to have whatever emotions they want […] but how can we help you through that?”
The fear of the unknown: provide access to accurate, timely, and local information
As seen in the Ontario government's most recent announcement in response to the surge of Omicron cases, the pandemic has been characterized by uncertainty, both small and large: from the early days of not knowing where we can get our toilet paper from to not knowing whether there is enough personal protective equipment for our healthcare workers, or ventilators for our sick and ultimately, not knowing when it will be “over.” Fear of the unknown has been identified as one factor contributing to Canadians’ negative mental health outcomes during the pandemic.[i] Among many factors, contributing to this uncertainty is what the World Health Organization has called the COVID-19 “infodemic,” which they define as “an overabundance of information” that “includes deliberate attempts to disseminate wrong information to undermine public health responses and advance alternative agendas of groups or individuals.”[ii]
Several CareMongering groups were specifically created to help community members overcome their fear of the unknown by navigating information about the pandemic. An organizer in British Columbia described this motivation to me, explaining, “There was a lot of misinformation or a lack of information, and there was a lot of fear […] And I thought, you know, we really need a group here online that will tackle this from a scientific perspective.” And an organizer in Labrador stated, “I see [CareMongering] as an active battle against fearmongering and fake news.” Many organizers also told me about the tedious hours they spent researching and approving posts and monitoring conversations in the Facebook group to ensure – to the best of their ability – that only reputable information was shared. This was challenging for organizers. Speaking directly about this challenge, an organizer from Southern Ontario explained, “CareMongering [was] dealing with the infodemic as well […] making sure that we’re not infecting the group with bad information.” In this way, through care(full) consideration of what information was shared, CareMongering groups helped contribute to providing accurate, timely, and local information to their communities.
The fear of falling through the cracks: share community resources, individual supports, and services
Since the onset of the pandemic, many people living in Canada have expressed a sense of fear about falling through the proverbial cracks in Canada’s health, social, and economic systems. The public health measures implemented to prevent the spread of the virus, as well as the risk of contracting COVID-19, come with a host of negative implications for many populations. Migrant workers, new Canadians, older adults, Black Canadians, Indigenous communities, students, small business owners, people living in Canada without documentation, people living with disabilities, and people experiencing homelessness are just some of the many groups at greater risk to the health and socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic.
Supporting the most at-risk community members was foundational to the concept and practices of CareMongering (e.g. picking up and delivering medication; creating maps of community resources; sharing garden tools, seeds, and produce; raising money for local non-profit organizations; etc.). Thus, when CareMongering was critiqued for focusing too much on positive individual acts of kindness and not enough on structural change, the founders of the first CareMongering group were quick to remind Canadians that CareMongering was about communities supporting one another in response to structural inequality – in part, an effort to temporarily fill in the cracks of Canadian systems.[iii] Stories of CareMongering groups acting in this way were told again and again throughout my conversations with organizers. An organizer in Manitoba explained the connection between support for community members and fear (or lack thereof), stating, “if we have a tool that can constantly remind people […] of the ways we can support and work through this together, even if it’s hard, then I think that mitigates a lot of fear for people.” Another organizer from Alberta explained the specific importance of community-based support, saying, “This was just showing people […] there are supports on the ground for you. You don’t have to be looking for that big social service support, great if you can get that too, but there was actually a lot of people who weren’t able to access those things for various reasons […] I think that definitely resonated in the group. And it drew people in because they were looking for a different response beyond freaking out.”
A resurgence of fear (for whom?)
During a conversation with an organizer from Southern Ontario in September 2020, she told me, “something that I'm currently being mindful of in the group is the resurgence of the fear of a second surge […].” She explained that with the colder weather many members were expressing more fear and there was a return to patterns from the early days of the pandemic, such as those at most risk requesting assistance. Although it has been over a year since this conversation, as the Omicron variant presents new challenges to those living in Ontario, and elsewhere in the country, many of us are experiencing some, or all of these pandemic fears, and many are experiencing fears beyond those I’ve outlined here.
Although many CareMongering groups are no longer active, an emphasis on care remains in many communities and organizations. We hope that through our reflections on these conversations with CareMongering organizers, hope can be found. There is hope when communities care for one another; when caring community spaces are created; when information is carefully shared; and when care is available to all community members. But as we reflect on the potential opportunities of CareMongering and community care more broadly, we also encourage Canadians to reflect on how care and fear are experienced by differently affected communities, on who should be responsible for providing what types of care, and on who might be falling through the cracks.
References
[i] Canadian Mental Health Association. (2020). Retrieved from: https://cmha.ca/news/covid-19-and-mental-health [ii]The World Health Organization. (September 23, 2020). “Managing the COVID-19 infodemic: Promoting healthy behaviours and mitigating the harm from misinformation and disinformation.” Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/news/item/23-09-2020-managing-the-covid-19-infodemic-promoting-healthy-behaviours-and-mitigating-the-harm-from-misinformation-and-disinformation [iii] Hye’s Musings. (March 19,2020). “CareMongering… Strategies beyond today.” Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDJXYl8eImY&feature=youtu.be
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